


stop, start

by seventhswan



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 05:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14466330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhswan/pseuds/seventhswan
Summary: Years of chasing Bucky down, dreaming about him, writing letters he tore up and then taped back together, drawing memories he tore up and taped back together, living on the road, eating dry Froot Loops and spaghetti straight out of the can, thinking about what he would say to Bucky when they were together again -[Infinity War spoilers within]





	stop, start

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: I didn't use the major character death tag due to fear of spoilers, but this deals with grief surrounding a canonical character death.

Bucky blows away like sand from a cupped hand. By the time Steve takes a step towards him and reaches out, it’s too late. Nat’s face twists like she’s going to vomit.

A breeze blows through Steve’s empty, outstretched fingers. The world is silent. Steve slumps to his knees and feels the grass below him, the ground, all apparently solid, all real. In the distance, he can hear the fight still going on. 

How much does Steve have to lose, to satisfy the universe? If he says _no, this burden is too much for me to carry, the world is too heavy,_ if he refuses to shoulder it any more, what will happen then?

“Come on,” Nat says. Her proud, beautiful face has arranged itself back into cool impassibility. She lifts his arm and props herself under his shoulder, heaves him to his feet. Together, they take one big, faltering step. Nat breathes out.

Steve stops. 

“I can’t leave him here,” he mutters. He looks back over his shoulder at where Bucky was standing a moment ago, solid and real in the sunlight. A clear-eyed Bucky, one who knew Steve’s name again. One who knew his own name.

“Steve –“ Nat says.

“There must be something left,” Steve says. He can’t bear to look at Nat’s face. There must be something – a particle of ash, a hair, the imprint of Bucky’s boot on a leaf. Anything might be enough to bring him back, if Shuri –

“They need us,” Nat says. She grips him more tightly, just on the wrong side of painful. “We have to go.” 

Years of fighting, and torture, and engineering, and running, and programming and deprogramming, chasing Bucky down, dreaming about him, writing letters he tore up and then taped back together, drawing memories he tore up and taped back together, living on the road, eating dry Froot Loops and spaghetti straight out of the can, thinking about what he would say to Bucky when they were together again, what he would say to a Bucky who _knew himself_ again –

“Let’s go,” Nat says.

There’s nothing left. Steve takes a step. Then he takes another, and another, and another.

|

 _You know, I never need to worry, Stevie,_ Steve’s ma said to him once. _I know you’ll always do the right thing._

He’d been bleeding from a bully’s punch, the blood a thick sluggish trickle towards his lip. Ma hadn’t scolded him, even though he’d intervened to take a blow not meant for him. She’d just got out the bottle of lye. 

_And in the end,_ she said, dabbing at his face and smiling in the way that put lines around her eyes, _the world is good to those who do good._


End file.
